Story dramatizes nursing home risks

To the editor:

In the search for ways to control drugs, I recall an incident when leftover drugs from former patients may not have been properly accounted for, or free drug samples were acquired by the medical staff.

A few years ago, a patient in a nursing home was given a pill. The nurse was asked the purpose of the pill. The nurse answered: “insomnia” - so that the patient would sleep better. The nurse then said that the drug was seroquel, a spare drug she keeps in her drawer and gives to patients if the prescribed medications don’t seem to work! I then learned that she had been giving this drug to this patient for at least two days. Seroquel was not prescribed by the doctor which made it impossible for the doctor to adjust medications, not knowing that other drugs had been given to the patient.

In checking on the internet about the drug seroquel, the FDA's Medication Guide states that seroquel "may cause serious side effects, including risk of death in the elderly.” The dose given is not known but the patient experienced a setback, including becoming confused, weak, dizzy, etc. — all side effects attributed to this drug. Further information revealed that there can be serious interactions with other drugs that the patient was taking.

In addition, this nurse worked many more hours than the nurse-standard of 12 hour shifts. She said that she filled in for another nurse and did not go home and stayed at the facility in a spare bed for a few hours, and then worked another shift until about 9:00 p.m.!

The patient's condition got worse, and the patient was admitted to the hospital, where I learned that one nurse had worked the full term of her pregnancy, and when the day arrived for the birth of her baby, she finished her shift, then called her husband to tell him that she was going upstairs to have her baby!

Medical facilities should have a procedure for disposing of drugs that were left-over by discharged patients;. No employee or medical personnel of these facilities should have access to these drugs for their own use or to give to patients, etc..These medications and sample drugs (received from drug sales personnel) must be accounted for.

Nurses and their assistants should not be allowed to work more than one shift in a 24 hour period. Perhaps 12-hour shifts are too long, and standards of health are too lax. A tired nurse may fail to give a patient the prescribed medications, another potential source of stashed away drugs.

Grant Rees

Logan